Mark Twain, a Biography. Complete eBook

LXIII

IN WASHINGTON—­A PUBLISHING PROPOSITION

Clemens remained but one day in New York. Senator
Stewart had written, about the time of the departure
of the Quaker City, offering him the position of private
secretary—­a position which was to give him
leisure for literary work, with a supporting salary
as well. Stewart no doubt thought it would be
considerably to his advantage to have the brilliant
writer and lecturer attached to his political establishment,
and Clemens likewise saw possibilities in the arrangement.
From Naples, in August, he had written accepting Stewart’s
offer; he lost no time now in discussing the matter
in person.—­[In a letter home, August 9th,
he referred to the arrangement: “I wrote
to Bill Stewart to-day accepting his private secretaryship
in Washington, next winter.”]

There seems to have been little difficulty in concluding
the arrangement. When Clemens had been in Washington
a week we find him writing:

Dearfolks, Tired and sleepy—­been
in Congress all day and making newspaper acquaintances.
Stewart is to look up a clerkship in the Patent
Office for Orion. Things necessarily move slowly
where there is so much business and such armies
of office-seekers to be attended to. I guess
it will be all right. I intend it shall be all
right.

I have 18 invitations to lecture,
at $100 each, in various parts
of the Union—­have
declined them all. I am for business now.

Belong on the Tribune Staff, and
shall write occasionally. Am
offered the same berth to-day on the Herald by
letter. Shall write
Mr. Bennett and accept, as soon as I hear from
Tribune that it will
not interfere. Am pretty well known now—­intend
to be better known.
Am hobnobbing with these old Generals and Senators
and other humbugs
for no good purpose. Don’t have any
more trouble making friends
than I did in California. All serene.
Good-by. Shall continue on
the Alta.
Yours affectionately,Sam.

P.S.—­I room with Bill
Stewart and board at Willard’s Hotel.

But the secretary arrangement was a brief matter.
It is impossible to conceive of Mark Twain as anybody’s
secretary, especially as the secretary of Senator
Stewart.

—­[In Senator Stewart’s memoirs he
refers unpleasantly to Mark Twain, and after relating
several incidents that bear only strained relations
to the truth, states that when the writer returned
from the Holy Land he (Stewart) offered him a secretaryship
as a sort of charity. He adds that Mark Twain’s
behavior on his premises was such that a threat of
a thrashing was necessary. The reason for such
statements becomes apparent, however, when he adds
that in ‘Roughing It’ the author accuses
him of cheating, prints a picture of him with a hatch
over his eye, and claims to have given him a sound
thrashing, none of which statements, save only the
one concerning the picture (an apparently unforgivable
offense to his dignity), is true, as the reader may
easily ascertain for himself.]